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Author Topic:   Think For Yourself!
WODIN

Guru

Posts: 2289
From:You can see the End of the World From here
Registered: Aug 2000

posted December 18, 2000 11:34 AM

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What does it mean to think for yourself?

Even as the seemingly monolithic infrastructure of the post-war world comes crumbling down around our heads, homogeneity continues to spread like some vast, insidious fungus across the cultural terrain of the Western World. We are told that the interactive, five-hundred-channel universe is causing us to break down into ever more insular clans; isolated tribes centered on coincidental collective interests. They tell us we are becoming strangers in our own communities. We ignore our neighbors in order to hold long e-mail discussions about the injustice of Australian gun laws with some invisible digital kid from Singapore, or we go on chat-lines and debate the ethics of Kirk's alteration of the programming for the Kobiashi Maru. Politically, they tell us, we are breaking down into smaller, more aggressive 'special interest' factions, hell-bent on getting the vast, innocent, Norman Rockwell majority to and accept some wild, anarcho-communist-feminist-homosexual-ecoextremist agenda.

On the other side of the coin, we have a bunch of illiterate yokels, armed to the gills, burning crosses in barren fields, pumping round after round into dummies dressed like ATF officers. We are, the pundits say, going through a global identity crisis. And yet... take a look around you. On your way to work today, count the corporate coffee boutiques. On your way back home, count the Walmarts. Spend a minute going from station to station on your FM dial. Sameness creeps. The corporate beast sweeps individuality under the carpet, replacing it with vacuum-packed, heat-and-serve, psychometrically-tailored franchise outlets. And we fit so easily into these preordained slots because, since birth, we have been twisted and massaged and compacted in a vast, generation-spanning, collective incessent brain washing, told that we don't share enough in common, but the majority of us are as indistinguishable from each other as the assembly-line cylinders of chunky-style dog food that we have become.

They know that allowing people to think for themselves can be a dangerous thing. For instance, thinking for one's self can lead to long, lonely nights in the basement, converting semi-automatic rifles to full auto, mixing up home-made napalm, and thinking up ever more explosive and/or virulent methods of outwardly expressing one's vague yet undeniable rage and disappointment at a society seemingly oblivious to the wishes of all but the wealthiest of the power elite. They do their best to supply any potential loose cannons with an endless stream of mind-numbing, stultifying opiate in the form of round-the-clock television programming. You can't build bombs if you're busy watching Friends. You'll never find the time to develop that new strain of anthrax when you're otherwise preoccupied by the pseudo-sexual shenanigans of Niles and Daphne. These days - media-fed paranoia to the contrary - acts of cultural rebellion are so rare as to be statistically insignificant. They are very good at what they do.

Aristotle said that any man who is truly alone is either a beast or a god, but certainly not a man. As we struggle to make our way through the psychic flux of everyday life, the key to true, liberating independence of thought lies not in total independence from your fellow man, which is an impossibility. It lies in learning to recognize the difference between being enlightened and having your chain pulled. It lies in developing the skills necessary to accurately judge information based on facts, logic and reason. It lies in learning to let go of beliefs that you know to be false, but to which you cling out of either habit, convenience or superstition. Ignorance is bliss. Thinking for yourself is hard work.


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[This message has been edited by WODIN (edited December 18, 2000).]


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Cleaner

Guru

Posts: 2150
From:St.Louis
Registered: Mar 2000

posted December 18, 2000 11:49 AM

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I hear yah Wodin.
Problem most people want to be lead.
Lazy I guess.
Wife say's I read to much.
I tell her you don't learn much by watchin TV.

PS. Are you profiling me? HEHHEHEHHE
No you can't have my guns.

[This message has been edited by Cleaner (edited December 18, 2000).]


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Thick dog

Guru

Posts: 2355
From:Florida
Registered: May 2000

posted December 18, 2000 11:52 AM

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I agree with what Cleaner said.


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Cleaner

Guru

Posts: 2150
From:St.Louis
Registered: Mar 2000

posted December 18, 2000 11:56 AM

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My father taught me to question everything.

So why did you post this Wodin? You wanta tell us something? HEHEHEHEHEH
Can I be involded - sort of a FIGHT CLUB THING?

CYA


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WODIN

Guru

Posts: 2289
From:You can see the End of the World From here
Registered: Aug 2000

posted December 18, 2000 12:31 PM

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I posted this because If I am sick and tired of the strip mall coffee-bar-la-granda-enima producing shop in another piece of crap Strip Mall that America has become! Where is the self expression in this world? People have become so entrenched in wanting to belong to a group that they have sacrificed an sense of self they may have once held.

In realizing this they become angry, embittered and then try to stomp out any and all forms of creativity that do not serve the collectiv conscous. We as a country, are tourning into nothing more than a cheap imitation of the startrekkin borg at least they had cool body attachments!

And I'm sick of people telling me to take down my print of the X-15 Cruise Basselope because the feel it offends their sense of What America is all about!

[This message has been edited by WODIN (edited December 18, 2000).]


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Latimer

Elite Bodybuilder

Posts: 1277
From:
Registered: May 2000

posted December 18, 2000 12:43 PM

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I agree with what Thich dog said.


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KiNg_BeNNy

Freak

Posts: 1639
From:new york
Registered: Apr 2000

posted December 18, 2000 01:02 PM

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yo bro..i know what you mean..people in this country dont think for themselves because there scared of not being excepted ...they fear rejection..let me ask you this what is normal mean in the sense of people in society being normal...i think ..that there is no normal...that all people are fucked up..and twisted individuals....so in turn my definition of normal would be comformity..people comform to what all people except so they will be accepted..

sorry for blabbing just some shit that has been on my mind


peace kb

------------------
"pain is something the average person spends a lifetime trying to avoid"
"pain is something that we elite seek out and thrive on"

"modus operandi"

"hesitation is the mother of all regret"


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WODIN

Guru

Posts: 2289
From:You can see the End of the World From here
Registered: Aug 2000

posted December 18, 2000 01:14 PM

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King Benny thank you for the reply. What you have to say is not a waste of time.


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WODIN

Guru

Posts: 2289
From:You can see the End of the World From here
Registered: Aug 2000

posted December 18, 2000 01:17 PM

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LONG LIVE THE X-15!


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[This message has been edited by WODIN (edited December 18, 2000).]


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Cleaner

Guru

Posts: 2150
From:St.Louis
Registered: Mar 2000

posted December 18, 2000 02:37 PM

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Wodin -

My biggest fear are :

Being sterotypical

and socially average.


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WODIN

Guru

Posts: 2289
From:You can see the End of the World From here
Registered: Aug 2000

posted December 18, 2000 02:39 PM

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Cleaner I can totally relate!


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Cleaner

Guru

Posts: 2150
From:St.Louis
Registered: Mar 2000

posted December 18, 2000 02:45 PM

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AWAWAAAAA
Man that funny shit.
Secret weapon for sure.

Why did that offend them?


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Slopain

Guru

Posts: 3832
From:Yo Aunties Pad
Registered: Jan 2000

posted December 18, 2000 02:50 PM

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Im with Llattimer on this one.

------------------
- If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people. -

For a good time click here: Search and Profiles (300Kleens Board)
Yet another fine board: Steriod World


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MattTheSkywalker

Moderator

Posts: 2148
From:Atlanta GA
Registered: Jan 2000

posted December 18, 2000 03:58 PM

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WODIN,

There is a powerful system in place to push things in the direction you (and I) abhor.

I don't mean that there are a bunch of old men in washington who dictate policy with the intent of creating what exists now, just that the system in place is self perpetuating, and is near unbreakable.

What system? The social one, and the economic one. The dominant ideology of success here in the US has become one of go to college, get a job, work until you retire, then die. If you really want to get ahead in the rat race, get an MBA. (I already launched my anti-MBA diatribe - you saw it. Suffice it to say that an MBA is a "buy into the system degree" of the highest order.) Stay with it long enough and you can be a leader in your field, and maybe even a "senior VP" or so the story goes.

Many kids do go to college, many do not. Ignore the fact that undergrad education is for the most part, an ongoing drink special. Try to get an entry level corporate job without a college dergree.

Now you have 2 major groups: the entry level corporate and the no-college. The college group immediately starts working hard in the rat race, going to alumni reunions talking about who they work for, and how much they make. These people fight on, maybe get MBAs, and begin to think that if they make $150K a year they are special. They start believing their own bullshit, and the system has turned them. So they start acquiring possessions to show how successful they are...etc and all that other crap.

They perpetuate the system. There are economic and political consequences of this ideology. If you want to talk about that, or discuss solutions, email me or read my book when I'm done.

I'm not slamming all MBAs or business people - I think you are one - but as one you must know that much of what I say is true.

As for thinking for MYself - I'm doing network consulting and I'm trying to start a real estate management (and ultimaetly development) company. But I'll be damned if I'm not self employed by age 30.


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WODIN

Guru

Posts: 2289
From:You can see the End of the World From here
Registered: Aug 2000

posted December 18, 2000 05:37 PM

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Matt the wife, a former Realitor says Good Luck!

Cleaner some guy in engineering who worked on SDI back in the early 80's!

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MattTheSkywalker

Moderator

Posts: 2148
From:Atlanta GA
Registered: Jan 2000

posted December 18, 2000 10:46 PM

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Wodin,

it's kind of a long term plan.....hopefully by the end of 2001 I own - or have owned - 3 properties and go from there....thanks though.


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luv2workout

Amateur Bodybuilder

Posts: 121
From:Louisiana
Registered: May 2000

posted December 18, 2000 11:13 PM

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Matt, just curious...How old are you???? I have read your posts and I am amazed w/your intelligence...just thought I'd tell you...


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Thor72

Cool Novice

Posts: 38
From:Valhalla
Registered: Nov 2000

posted December 19, 2000 12:30 AM

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Wodin, nice name. I'm Teutonic by heritage and big by choice. When did your girlfriend break-up with you?
Just fuckin' with you!

I think your post describes how a lot of us feel. --Your brother in Iron-- Thor


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Hugh Gellatts

Pro Bodybuilder

Posts: 470
From:Ronnie Coleman's gym
Registered: Oct 2000

posted December 19, 2000 12:40 AM

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America is run by media conglomerates. With all these mergers it will get much worse in the next five years. Our society is not fascist though, because the people are not forced to think the way they are told; they choose to think the way they are told (since it is so much more convienient).


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WODIN

Guru

Posts: 2289
From:You can see the End of the World From here
Registered: Aug 2000

posted December 19, 2000 06:46 AM

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Good one Thor. I've just always been into Norse Mythology, been married for 13 1/2 years now. You should chat some with Mr. Muscle he lives in Norway.

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havoc

Guru

Posts: 2865
From:The 27th Century, USAtiva
Registered: Jul 2000

posted December 19, 2000 07:55 AM

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I'm with Slopain, the L is for llama bitch.

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MattTheSkywalker

Moderator

Posts: 2148
From:Atlanta GA
Registered: Jan 2000

posted December 19, 2000 08:18 AM

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Luv2....

I'm 25. Not that old but I have seen a lot of stuff and lived in a lot of different places, even Louisiana for a few months.


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